Posts Tagged: composting

Gardening — Comments Off
26
Jun 11

Raising Worms and Composting

If you have organic waste, you can use the composting method to recycle it. How this works is the worms consume the waste. After they have eaten it, it can be used to fertilize a garden. The best things to use are food waste from fruit and vegetables.

Just put a bin with a lit on next to your regular garbage bin. Whenever you have some vegetable or fruit waste, just put it in the designated bin. Then empty the bin onto your compost every now and again.

As the organic waste is mixed in the worm compost, your fruit and vegetables will grow larger. Using the fertilizer, you will have fresh food items to eat. When you have a worm farm, you will have plenty of compost worms to work with. Also raising worms and composting is a good way of teaching kids about nature.

Here are some key issues on composting:

* Compost piles should always be moist. Too much water can mess it up. It should not be wet to the point where there is an excess; otherwise, it will have to be drained.

* Aeration of the compost pile is when you turn it continuously on a regular basis. When you do that, you allow oxygen to come in on the process. Organic materials will decompose quicker as long as the oxygen is there.

* There should be a balance of carbon and nitrogen in the compost pile. Having too much of either can throw it off kilter. A mixture of organic material and grass trimmings will help it to be balanced. Your compost will then grow properly.

* Composting works to keep pests and plant diseases away. In addition to that, it works to reduce or get rid of the use of fertilizers that contain chemicals. Soil is remediated in a cost-effective manner. Any hazardous waste or toxins are removed.

With the emergence of the “green revolution”, raising worms with composting is a good choice. Adults and children can both benefit from this and learn more about the environment in the process. Not to mention other things that are related to this, such as having waste placed in dumps and landfills.
Nowadays with so many chemicals and other factors causing different areas to be polluted, it’s a wonder that people are still able to breathe through the mess. Some people would have never thought how much food scraps and other viable waste could make a difference in a person’s life.

In addition to the worm farms, plants and vegetables can now have an improved quality of life because of composting. The environment will greatly appreciate it. So, if you haven’t already, start raising worms today and do yourself and the world a favor!

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15
Apr 11

Food Waste Composting

Food Wastes to Compost Or Not

DO COMPOST – For food compost it is important to use a plastic or metal compost bin:

- All your vegetable and fruit wastes, including rinds and cores even if they are moldy.
- Coffee grounds, tea bags and filters
- Crushed egg shells
- Stale bread, donuts, cookies, crackers, all foodstuffs produced from flour.
- Grains (cooked or uncooked): rice
- Fruit or vegetable pulp from making juice
- Expired boxed foods from the pantry; pasta
- Corn cobs and husks (cobs decompose very slowly)

DON’T COMPOST

- Meat or meat waste, such as bones, fat, gristle, skin, etc.
- Fish or fish waste
- Dairy products, such as cheese, butter, yogurt, cream cheese, cottage cheese, sour cream,
- Grease and oils

The Decision to Live Green

Home composting of food products is the decision to live green. Store scraps in plastic bags in your refrigerator until you can place them in your compost bin. While preparing food, chop up scraps so they take up less space until placed in your compost bin. Scraps can be placed in a Kitchen Compost Pail until taken to your compost bin

The Kitchen Compost Pail

The best way to store food scraps until thrown into the compost bin is in a kitchen compost pail with a snap on secure lid. This pail can be kept under the sink. The kitchen scrap pail should have a secure lid, be washable, and have a handle. A plastic pail with a tight fitting lid is ideal.

Empty your kitchen scrap container daily or every few days, depending upon how much waste you generate. Placing a damp paper towel or damp newspaper over the contents of the pail will help keep down the odor.

The best size pail to store food scraps is a 4-5 gallon lidded bucket. This 4 to 5 gallon bucket can be easily found at your local hardware store. Keep the bucket near your back door. Line the lid with newspaper to cut down on gnats and odors.

Here’s a good process to cut down on odors or gnats. Keep nearby a small pail of finished compost, sawdust or peat moss, Scoop a large spoon full of this material and sprinkle it on the top of the newly-added food scraps. This will cut down on the odors and gnats.

The Cone Shaped Composter

There are several cone shaped composting bins available on the market to make composting easy. The bottom portion of these types of compost bins have aeration holes and are buried about 2 feet in the ground. This keeps the odors generated by decomposition to a minimum. The portion of the compost bin that is above ground is sealed when the lid is closed to keep out animals.

These types of compost bins aren’t designed to compost grass clippings but are specifically for composting vegetable food waste. This type of compost bin should be set in direct sunlight. The heat generated from the direct sun exposure aids in the decomposition process.

Gardening — Comments Off
3
Apr 11

The Ultimate Garden Fertilizer

Composting is the process in which organic substances are decomposed slowly over time. It can be created with the passive method or the managed method. The passive method allows you to simply add your organic materials to a pile and then wait for the process to complete the work. The managed method allows you to significantly speed up the decomposing process.

In order for the compost pile to decompose properly you will need brown materials, green materials, air, and water. Brown materials are; leaves, straw and other woody materials. Green materials are; grass clippings, food scraps, and manure.

The time it takes for your compost pile to be ready will depend upon the combination of materials you add and the method you use. It can take as little as 3 weeks with the managed method or as long as 1 year with the passive method. With the passive method you simply add your ingredients on a pile and allow mother nature to do all of the work. There are products called compost tumblers which allow you to use the managed method very effectively.

Compost can be used as a side dressing to your plants or it can be worked into your garden soil before planting. It should be spread about 1″ thick for normal garden soil, 2-3″ for poor soil. When using it as a side dressing, simply add a 2″ layer on top of the soil around the base of the plant.

Compost delivers plant nutrients with a slow-release method ensuring healthy garden soil for years to come. See for yourself why gardeners around the world consider it to be the ultimate garden fertilizer.

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27
Nov 10

Composting and Insects

Cold Composting

Cold composting consists of composting vegetable waste from the kitchen or garden and grass clippings. The vegetable waste contains more water than yard clippings. This extra moisture greatly slows the decomposition process and the temperature of the heap remains cooler, thus the term cold composting. Composting piles that contain moisture usually contain large numbers of redworms and insect larvae. Common redworms are sometimes added to the compost heap to aid in the decomposition process.

Insects In Your Compost Heap

There are a number of different insects that live in cold compost piles that contain vegetable material. The presence of these insects is positive since they aid in decomposition of the material.

When you first add kitchen vegetable matter you may get a large number of fruit flies until decomposition of the vegetable matter begins. Fruit flies lay their eggs in fruit and vegetable waste. Their maggots feed on the bacteria and fungus of the decomposing vegetable matter. A variety arthropods and small insects, like sowbugs will set up housekeeping in cold composting heaps. These insects feed on the bacteria and fungus that are present in the cold compost heap. Do not try to control these insects with insecticides since this will interfere with heap’s equilibrium and slow down decomposition. These insects speed the decomposition of vegetable waste and grass clippings in the heap. Never put meat, fat, or oils into your compost heap. These will rot and cause offensive odors and will attract house flies and scavenging rodents.

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29
Mar 10

Compost Crock

Have you recently started a compost bin but find that it’s an annoying chore to constantly bring your kitchen scraps out to it??What good is a compost bin outside when most of the stuff that you want to put into it is in your kitchen??If you want to collect kitchen scraps for your compost bin you should really own a compost crock.?/p>

A compost crock looks like a cookie jar but instead of storing cookies in it, you store garbage.?Put your used coffee grinds, eggshells, vegetable peelings or fruit rinds in there for safekeeping.?When it’s filled up, then you bring it out to your compost bin.?What could be easier??Now there’s no need to walk outside every time you make a cup of coffee or peel a carrot.?Just pop the waste into your kitchen compost crock and you can take it outside another time.?/p>

Now you may be thinking that it sounds pretty gross to store this waste in your kitchen.?Well don’t worry about smells because you can get a compost crock with a filter built right into the lid.?With a carbon filter eliminating the odors, you won’t even know it’s in your kitchen.?/p>

Kitchen composters come in either stainless steel or ceramic versions so choose one that best fits the d飯r of your kitchen.?Now just because you can save your organic waste in a kitchen crock doesn’t mean that it’s okay to get lazy and never empty the contents into your compost bin.?Now that would be gross.?Depending on the size of your family you will probably have to empty it at least once a week.?I suggest owning two compost crocks.?/p>

After you empty your indoor composter, it’s a good idea to rinse it out.?A quick blast from the hose while you’re outside is fine or you can clean it back in your kitchen sink.?Every once in a while you may want to give it a thorough cleaning in the dishwasher.?/p>

Stop throwing away those banana peels, tea bags and anything else that could be used in your compost bin to make an terrific organic fertilizer.?It’s almost like throwing out money.?A compost crock will make saving these items more convenient and that will make composting more convenient too.

You can learn more about kitchen composting and other great ways to reduce your waste by making organic, chemical-free compost at TheCompostBin.com

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16
Mar 10

Organic Gardening – Microorganisms and Composting

To have a successful composting system you need some key ingredients, carbon rich material, nitrogen rich material and microorganisms to decompose the organic matter. Bacteria, fungi and actinomycetes are the three main microorganisms that account for the majority of the decomposition process in a compost pile. They are what is known as chemical decomposers, they change the chemistry of organic matter. There are also larger organisms that work just as hard in the process of decomposition, these are called macroorganisms. Earthworms are the most commonly known of these organisms to the home gardener, others include beetles, centipedes, slugs, spiders and flatworms. They all aid in the decomposition process by chewing, grinding and tearing organic material into smaller pieces.

The most important all these organisms in your compost pile is the aerobic bacteria and there population can be incredible. In one gram of soil there can be millions. They are the most diverse of all organisms and can devour just about anything.

Bacteria, although it can eat it’s way through a variety of organic material, it is not indestructible. The environment can be it’s worst enemy. The change of temperature, moisture and oxygen can harm and kill off bacteria as well as help it. The proper percentage of these three elements are very critical in composting to have a successful ending product.

Compost piles have more than one type of bacteria and there population will vary depending on the temperature of the compost pile. Psychrophilic bacteria is one that works in a pile with low temperature, Mesophilic bacteria for mid temperatures and the heat loving Thermophilic bacteria for high temperatures.

Along with the various types of bacteria that is needed to work the compost pile, there are other higher forms like Actinomycetes. It is a bacteria that is similar to a fungi or mold,

Composting is a basic process that can easily be preformed by the home gardener, but when you get into the compost pile you will find out the large amount of complexity that makes it work.

A environment friendly and healthy way of gardening. Organic Gardening is away of gardening in harmony with nature. Growing a healthy and productive crop in a way that is healthier for both you and the environment.

John Yazo

http://www.organicheirloomgardening.com